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posted by FatPhil on Monday February 06 2017, @09:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-there-an-all-fake-news-sites-are-liars-paradox dept.

Over the last few months, we've talked about the weird obsession some people upset by the results of the election have had with the concept of "fake news." We warned that focusing on "fake news" as a problem was not just silly and pointless, but that it would quickly morph into calls for censorship. And, even worse, that censorship power would be in the hands of whoever got to define what "fake news" was.

Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170201/23481336610/bad-idea-worst-idea-having-ftc-regulate-fake-news.shtml


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday February 06 2017, @09:39PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Monday February 06 2017, @09:39PM (#463696)

    No. Just no. Read the article, you can see the subtext almost plainer than the actual words. It is a scream at their Prog allies, "You IDIOTS! Trump is the President, do you want to hand him this weapon?"

    It should never exist, for anyone, anywhere, at any time or place. Just NO!

    Does anyone think -any- government 'fake news' Czar is ever going to punish the NYT or CNN? To ask the question is to answer it and know what it would be used as, a weapon to destroy small media. Wouldn't matter who created it, wouldn't matter who controlled it at first, that is where it would evolve because it is the only path open to it to grow power and ALL government agencies have that as mission #1.

    What part of "Congress shall make no law..." do people have trouble reading?

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  • (Score: 2) by Justin Case on Monday February 06 2017, @09:51PM

    by Justin Case (4239) on Monday February 06 2017, @09:51PM (#463711) Journal

    What part of "Congress shall make no law..." do people have trouble reading?

    Quick update for you... we don't "do" laws any more.

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday February 06 2017, @10:06PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Monday February 06 2017, @10:06PM (#463722) Journal

    > Does anyone think -any- government 'fake news' Czar is ever going to punish the NYT or CNN?

    If this misguided and probably unlawful idea were implemented during Mr. Trump's tenure, the New York Times would be a plausible target for enforcement:

    The failing @nytimes has been wrong about me from the very beginning. Said I would lose the primaries, then the general election. FAKE NEWS!

    -- https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825328817833123840 [twitter.com]

    Thr [sic] coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its...

    ...dwindling subscribers and readers.They got me wrong right from the beginning and still have not changed course, and never will. DISHONEST

    -- https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825329757646618624 [twitter.com] and https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825331665509691393 [twitter.com]

    Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!

    -- https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825690087857995776 [twitter.com]

    The failing @nytimes story is so totally wrong on transition. It is going so smoothly. Also, I have spoken to many foreign leaders.

    -- https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/798861300453539840 [twitter.com]

    Australia, New Zealand, and more. I am always available to them. @nytimes is just upset that they looked like fools in their coverage of me.

    -- https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/798864532433211392 [twitter.com]

    On another occasion, Mr. Trump asked the New York Times to retract a story. He also threatened to sue the paper over the story. He called one of its reporters "a disgusting human being" when she questioned him about the story.

    http://www.nytco.com/the-new-york-timess-response-to-donald-trumps-retraction-letter/ [nytco.com]
    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-plans-to-sue-the-new-york-times/ [cbsnews.com]

    I doubt that CNN would be a sacred cow. Breitbart News, maybe.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 07 2017, @01:45AM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 07 2017, @01:45AM (#463834)

    I agree with jmorris, which should tell you how bad of an idea this is since we're somewhere near the opposite ends of the political spectrum.

    The only legitimate counter to speech or printed words that you don't like or think is wrong: Speech and printed words that refute them, ideally with solid evidence and logic. Giving anybody the power to simply shut people up means that power can defeat truth in the minds of those who are paying attention. That leads to a "reality" that is increasingly divorced from actual reality. That was one of the many reasons the Soviet Union collapsed: When nobody can tell the truth and survive, those making decisions can't hear what reality actually is, which guarantees bad decisions even from well-intentioned leaders (never mind ill-intentioned leaders who of course will make bad decisions regardless).

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @02:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @02:16AM (#463844)

      Its making a mountain out of a molehill. One op-ed column said something that was more click-bait than anything else, techdirt took the bait and spooged all over it and now we're getting techdirt's sloppy seconds here. Of course this was never going to happen. But it did give a lot of people the chance to signal the shit out of their virtue.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @04:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @04:41AM (#463897)

      The appropriate course is to take them to court for fraud. If they can't provide evidence or sources for what they're printing, then they are scammers and can be dealt with in the usual way.

      The problem here is that the courts seem to think that the distinction between news and entertainment isn't important. That organizations can claim to be "news" in all their advertisements and such, but be providing entertainment when anybody calls them on publishing known fake news articles.

      It's one thing to publish and article or more that turns out to be true based upon a sincere belief that the sourcing and the rest was true and quite another to be making shit up that you know to be false. Libel has been illegal for quite some time and it's not unreasonable to extend that to instances where the government or the public at large was harmed by reporting that was known to use lies as the only substantiation.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 07 2017, @04:02PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday February 07 2017, @04:02PM (#464110)

        Libel has been illegal for quite some time

        1. Defamation and libel is a civil matter, not a criminal matter.
        2. A libel suit is an after-the-fact remedy, not a prior restraint on publishing information.
        3. The legal standards for defamation of a public figure, especially a politician, are very very high. You have to prove that the defendant knew the claim was false, knew the claim would be taken seriously, and had "actual malice" when they did it. For example, Bill Maher can joke about Donald Trump being the son of an orange-haired orangutan, and that's completely legal. Also legal would be a reporter making an honest mistake like having sources that claimed that Nancy Pelosi was having an affair when she wasn't.
        4. The Streisand Effect means that defamation suits tend to bring more attention to the alleged libel, so it's a risky move.

        What the FTC is talking about here is being able to, say, censor out stuff before it gets to an audience because it's "fake news". Which they shouldn't be able to do under any reasonable reading of the First Amendment.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @08:33PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @08:33PM (#464262)

          > What the FTC is talking about here is

          Is nothing.

          The FTC isn't saying anything. Its just some asshole with a newspaper column and a deadline.

          Do not make this into more than it is.

  • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:55AM

    by fritsd (4586) on Tuesday February 07 2017, @05:55AM (#463913) Journal

    I think you're right on this one.

    But I also think there might be a function of the government here:
    If the government is made to notice that their population's minds are affected by this propaganda, they can instruct the Depertment of Education to allocate budget to offer all the English teachers refreshment courses on how to immunize their pupils, by giving them several hours of lessons about *critical* reading and *critical* thinking.

    I went to a so-called "elite" school in the city (despite not being from the elite; but in those years that was allowed). My Dutch teachers used I think half a year to teach the kids how to write for a purpose, how to identify what difficulty of words to choose for your target audience, how to convince a government / your buyers / your underlings, and especially: how to read a text in such a way as to deconstruct what purpose the writer had to make you read that text, and what thoughts he/she wants to put in your head. Also the basic fallacies, wookies, etc.

    I think it should still be a crime to set people up to violence against each other, because some people are just not that smart (football hooligans come to mind), and when it can be proven in a court of law that some agitator wrote a text / speech to make their blood boil in order to target the agitator's "enemies" with the influenced's violence, that should be punished as a crime. Difficult to prove though because the agitator can easily claim it was all just for laughs, he (usually a he) didn't think people were so stupid as to follow up on it. This is probably different between Europe and the USA, where the USA is holding tight to its First Amendment on free speech, and the Germans punish Neo-Nazis harshly because they remember what bloodlust Goebbels easily instigated in their great grandfathers and mothers.

    The British had put the hate preacher Abu Hamza (Captain Hook) in jail, I think. Would you have allowed him to continue to preach? Difficult question.